Fox News Issues a Rare Correction For Accidentally Telling the Truth About Trump

Posted by on June 10, 2018 at 2:57 pm. NO Comments :

On Sunday morning Donald Trump’s favorite TV show, Fox and Friends, was engaged in their customary Trump-fluffing parade of propaganda. The President had just embarrassed the nation at the G7 meeting where he advocated for Russia, insulted American media, and made sure to blame all of his failures on his predecessors in the White House.

Fox News Breaking

Just prior to jetting off to Singapore for a summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Trump also tossed a rhetorical grenade back at Canada. He called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a liar and refused to join the other six member nations in a joint communique. The meeting that he previously described as “very, very successful,” was ditched as total waste of time. So naturally Fox News heartily praised Trump as a visionary leader who can do no wrong. Well, except for “Curvy Couch” potato Abby Huntsman, who had this to say as Trump arrived in Singapore:

“Regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators, what we are seeing right now, this is history.”

Oh my. Dr. Freud may want to consult on this little slip. But never fear, Huntsman must have been alerted to her “mistake” by a rattled control room, and she quickly gave an on-air apology:

Ordinarily Fox News will not apologize for their obvious and egregious misstatements and deliberate lies. That’s a trait they share with the President they love so much they emulate him. When they do apologize it’s usually in a tweet or a press release that no one but newsroom insiders ever see. Fox News has still never apologized for their slanderous stories about the murdered DNC employee, Seth Rich. Just last night Fox’s Jesse Watters did a segment where he ran a video of violent right-wingers but said they were anti-fascist demonstrators. There has been no apology or correction. Neither have there been any corrections for the innumerable falsehoods of Donald Trump that Fox parrots as facts.

But Huntsman did apologize for accidentally – and some would say correctly – calling Trump a dictator. That’s because they wouldn’t want to let any negative impressions of Dear Leader go uncorrected. But all of the times they “inadvertently” disparaged Democrats or liberals are left to stand despite being alerted to the mistakes and called upon to correct them.

We’re still waiting for Abby Huntsman to apologize for saying Trump is “a phony and desperate for media attention,” in this 2015 segment when she worked for MSNBC:

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

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America’s Crybaby: Trump Responds to Trudeau Like a Petulant Wimp Who’s Incapable of Governing

Posted by on June 10, 2018 at 8:59 am. 2 Comments :

Everyday Donald Trump burdens America with more reasons to be embarrassed by his infantile behavior. This would be disturbing if he were just a real estate investor or a TV game show host. But as the President of the United States it’s downright terrifying. Trump’s emotional immaturity is a national security risk that needs to be addressed before he does some lasting harm to the nation or the world.

Donald Trump, Angela Merkel

The latest example of Trump’s ill-mannered peevishness came at the conclusion of the G7 meetings in Canada. Trump held a mini press briefing to give his summary of the conference before jetting off to Singapore for a summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. He spent much of that time whining about how the U.S., in his opinion, was treated unfairly by the world (which he blamed on his predecessors in the White House) and how dishonest the media is (always the victim). Nevertheless, Trump hailed the results overall saying that “We’ve concluded a really tremendously successful G7.” And when asked about his relationship with the other members he rated it as a “ten” on a scale of zero to ten.

That era of good feelings, however, didn’t last long. A few short hours later, Trump demonstrated that he is thoroughly unstable and untrustworthy as a national leader. His reaction to comments by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed his fatally flawed mental state and inability to grasp or deal with international relations. What rankled Trump was Trudeau’s remarks that Canada would respond in kind to Trump’s threats of tariffs on Canadian goods and services. Trudeau said that:

“It would be with regret, but it would be with absolute certainty and firmness that we that we move forward with retaliatory measures on July first applying equivalent tariffs to the ones that Americans have unjustly applied to us. I have made it very clear to the President that it is not something we relish doing, but it is something that we absolutely will do. Canadians: we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.”

This was not a new position on Trudeau’s part. It was exactly what he told Trump during the G7 meeting. But Trump seemed to have taken the public pronouncement in a bizarrely personal way. He almost immediately tweeted:

Trump didn’t bother to specify which statements by Trudeau he considered false. But that hardly matters, he never does. What really stands out as an erratic reaction is Trump’s decision not to sign onto the G7’s concluding communique. He appears to think that because the G7 meeting was held in Canada this year, that it is a Canadian enterprise and, by not signing, he is punishing Trudeau who he is mad at right now. In fact, he is insulting all six other members of the allied organization who the communique represents.

Also notable is that Trump liked Trudeau when he thought he was “meek and mild.” But now that Trudeau is standing up to him, Trump is throwing a tantrum and refusing to play nicely. Trump inexplicably considers Trudeau’s determination to represent the best interests of his country as “dishonest and weak.” Clearly the only problem Trump really has with Trudeau is that he is not capitulating to the wannabe dictator of America.

This spectacle of juvenile vengefulness is a bad omen for Trump’s next meeting (which he doesn’t think he needs to prepare for). Unlike Trudeau, Kim Jong Un is not an American ally. Nor can Kim be expected to be nearly as genteel and cooperative as Trudeau. Trump has already gone off half-cocked with Kim by manically scheduling, then canceling, then rescheduling this summit. And now he’s going to meet with Kim in a foul mood due to his perception of having been disrespected by Trudeau. It certainly can’t help matters with Trump going into this like a colicky infant. In fact, it will only exacerbate his notoriously ineffective negotiating skills that are further weakened by his willful ignorance. If we get through the next week without giving away Hawaii or launching any nuclear missile we should consider ourselves fortunate.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


Trump Says He Isn’t Looking to Blame America’s Past Leaders, But Then Does So 6 Times

Posted by on June 9, 2018 at 2:01 pm. 1 Comments :

When Donald Trump is at home in the United States he spends much of his time denigrating the country, its people, and it’s leaders, past and present. His campaign slogan of “America First” might actually be a shortened version that originally read “Blame America First.” This is the sort of common anti-American spiel that is standard in the Trump repertoire. He’s been doing this throughout his visit to Canada for the G7 meeting, and we can expect more of that when he’s in Singapore with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un next week.

Donald Trump

Trump held a brief press avail prior to his departure from Quebec. It was predictably full of the open animosity he has for America, particularly the media that he despises. But he clearly didn’t want to leave anyone else out as he trashed the country and those who have represented it. He made a special note of blaming President Obama for Russia’s invasion of Crimea. But guess who he didn’t blame? Russia.

After chastising Obama for allegedly doing nothing when Russia annexed Crimea, Trump couldn’t explain why he’s done nothing about Russia’s continued occupation. Point of fact: Obama did respond to the annexation with sanctions and leading the effort to boot Russia out of the G7. Trump is now advocating for Russia to be readmitted to the G7 and for the sanctions to be removed. Even though Russia is still in Crimea and is guilty of crimes around the world, including in the U.S.

However, what really stood out in his remarks was a whopping dose of hypocrisy that was astronomical, even for him. Trump sought to minimize the frequent attacks he makes on his fellow Americans. Not that he cares about the harm he’s doing to the country’s reputation. It was probably just his way pretending to have some sort of emotional balance. He failed miserably. The failure became unavoidably apparent in a comment that everyone knew he couldn’t possibly believe when he said unconvincingly that, “I’m not looking to criticize people that were preceding me.” But that claim was blown apart by almost everything else he said during the Q&A. In fact, he explicitly contradicted himself six times in the brief press event where he also said:

  • “The United States has been treated very, very unfairly treated. And I don’t blame other leaders for that. I blame our past leaders.”
  • “I don’t blame them. I blame our leaders.”
  • “Because the United states leaders of the past didn’t do a good job on trade – and again, I’m not blaming countries. I’m blaming our people that represented our past.”
  • “I don’t blame them, as I said. I blame our past leaders.”
  • “It’s the fault of the people that preceded me.”
  • “They were missing in action, our leaders.”

Does that sound like someone who isn’t “looking to criticize people” that preceded him? Of course not. Trump has always blamed everyone else for his own failures. This is just another lame attempt to gaslight the press and the public by making obviously contradictory statements intended to confuse and distract. But the only people this tactic works on are his own Deplorable disciples who are too dumb to see through it. It’s really pretty pathetic. But it’s also somewhat frightening that anyone embraces Trump’s open disdain for our country and is fooled by his obvious bullshit.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Here is the full video of the press event, if you have the stomach for it.


Pathological Liar Donald Trump Tells World Press that the U.S. Media is ‘Unbelievably Dishonest’

Posted by on June 9, 2018 at 11:00 am. 2 Comments :

This weekend Donald Trump was in Canada doing what he does best: Insulting the media and embarrassing the nation wherever he happens to be in the world. It’s one thing for Trump to relentlessly slander the free press in the U.S., but when he takes that show on the road he is only making the problems and perils of the foreign press much worse. He is, in fact, empowering censorship and oppression around the world.

Donald Trump

During an impromptu press avail in Quebec on Saturday, the President delivered a frighteningly stilted reading of prepared remarks regarding the G7 meeting that just concluded. Then he took a few questions from the gathered media. The first question asked at this event seems like a plant by Trump or his staff. The unknown “reporter” asked:

“Mr. President, you are about to embark on what may be the most important meeting you’ve ever had in you life. What’s in your gut? Neels of ster…uh. steel nerves, or butterflies?”

Apparently this ass-kisser’s nerves weren’t very steely. Later near the end of the affair, Trump was asked about his obsession with tearing down the media (video below):

Reporter: Here in Canada you’ve attacked the U.S. press back home, but you’ve also done it on foreign soil. I guess I’d like to ask you why you do that?
Trump: Because the U.S. press is very dishonest, much of it. Not all of it. I have some folks in your profession that are with the U.S., U.S. citizens, proud citizens there. Reporters. These are some of the most outstanding people I know. But there are many people in the press that are unbelievably dishonest. They don’t cover stories the way they’re supposed to be. They don’t even report them in many cases if they’re positive. So there’s tremendous…tremen…you know, I came up with the term “fake news.” It’s a lot of fake news. At the same time I have great respect for many of the people in the press.

Let’s just get this out of the way: The “reporters” Trump regards as “outstanding people” and “proud citizens” are exclusively from Fox News. The rest of the media Trump has long ago dismissed as “the enemy of the American people.” They are who he is now insulting in front of an assembly of journalists from around the world. His complaint that “They don’t cover stories the way they’re supposed to be,” reveals his mindset that the press has an obligation to cover him positively. He says that literally in his next sentence. And that confirms the well established fact that Trump thinks anything negative about him is fake news (a term he certainly did not come up with).

During this Q&A Trump accidentally took a question from a reporter from CNN who asked him about the obvious tensions between him and some of the other leaders at the G7. Trump then asked him who he was with. When the reporter said CNN, Trump rolled his eyes and said:

“I figured. Fake news CNN. The worst. I could tell by the ques…I had no idea you were with CNN. After the question I was just curious as to who you were with. You’re with CNN.”

That’s how this president deals with a perfectly reasonable inquiry about his notably poor relations with his international counterparts. He eventually answered saying that his relationships with other leaders is “on a scale of zero to ten, a ten.” And if that isn’t a sign of an acute delusional psychosis, what is?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


Trump Says He Believes in the Free Press – That He Says is ‘The Enemy of the American People’

Posted by on June 8, 2018 at 3:07 pm. 1 Comments :

On Thursday Donald Trump participated in a press avail with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Reporters asked him about how he was preparing for the (allegedly) upcoming summit meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Trump replied “I think I’m very well prepared. I don’t think I have to prepare very much. It’s about attitude.” That, besides being a frightening glimpse into Trump’s diseased mindset, is typical of his notorious aversion to learning anything or knowing what the fudge he’s talking about. A responsible leader would study vigorously for weeks prior to a meeting as important as the one with Kim.

Donald Trump

On Friday Trump took a few minutes to answer some questions on his way the G7 meeting in Canada. When reporters sought to confirm his troubling statement about preparation, Trump lied and said that he never said it. He then went on to say that his unedited remarks specified that he had been preparing his whole life for this meeting. However, he didn’t say anything of the kind. And even if he had, that would only exacerbate the idiocy of his thinking. You can’t prepare for a specific diplomatic encounter with a lifetime of greed, lust, and ego gratification. Clearly he had not been preparing for such a meeting his whole life. Trump’s life could only be considered preparation for becoming a dishonest, morally and financially bankrupt, reality TV game show host and treasonous tool of America’s enemies.

In refuting the accurate reports of his inability and contempt for preparation, Trump once again blamed the whole thing on “fake news.” Which makes what he said immediately after all the more ironic. The subject had segued to leakers in government. So Trump wanted to make sure that everyone knew about his commitment to the free press. He said that:

“I believe strongly in freedom of press. I’m a big, big believer in freedom of press. But I’m also a believer in classified information.”

The evidence of Trump’s belief in freedom of the press is somewhere between thin and nonexistent. This is the president who has repeatedly referred to the press in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the American people.” And his insistence on adding the prefix “fake” whenever he refers to the news is a deliberate attempt to discredit all of the media, as well as the Constitution that protects it. His all too obvious purpose is to lay a foundation of distrust so that he can dismiss any reporting that is critical of him. He has literally called for the jailing of reporters and for prohibiting media sources he doesn’t like from covering him. That’s his idea of a strong belief in freedom of the press.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump is going to cut his G7 visit short because he’s too scared of spending time with the American allies he’s alienated. And since his pal Vladimir Putin won’t be there, it couldn’t be much fun for him. Trump said that Russia should be readmitted to the G7. But why would that be necessary since he is there to do whatever Putin would want? Then he’s off to hang out with Kim in Singapore, where his life of preparation will likely result in him giving Hawaii to North Korea. And if he gets his way, there will be no media there (except for Fox News) to report it.


Former Fox News Military Analyst: I Am Convinced Vladimir Putin Has a Grip on Donald Trump

Posted by on June 7, 2018 at 12:28 pm. 5 Comments :

The evidence that Fox News is nothing but a conduit for pro-Trump propaganda with a blatantly conservative bias is voluminous and undeniable. Nevertheless, they continue to pretend that they are a legitimate news enterprise. Even though they abandoned their “fair and balanced” slogan, they replaced it with “Real News, Real Honest Opinion” in an attempt to mirror Trump’s anti-media rhetoric.

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

However, every now and then some truth from behind the Curtain of Lies seeps out. Sometimes it comes from Republicans who are too embarrassed to stand by some ludicraous claim by Fox News and/or Trump. Sometimes it comes from a network guest or host who has diverted from the mandatory talking points (i.e. Shepard Smith). And sometimes it comes from someone who has escaped the Fox gulag and become free to speak unencumbered by Fox’s forced doctrine and threats from their boss.

One of those refugees is Lt. Col. Ralph Peters. He is a staunch conservative who has had his share of repulsive commentaries while he was a Fox New military analyst. But on Wednesday Peters made his first non-Fox television appearance with an interview by Anderson Cooper on CNN. His unrepressed rage and disgust for his former employer was a startling thing to behold. So startling, in fact, that it needs no elaboration. Feast on these remarks by someone who once called President Obama a “pussy” on the air (video below):

“Robert Mueller is as noble — and I use that word carefully — as noble a public servant as you will find. And the assaults upon his character, upon his practices, upon his investigation just betray our fundamental principles.”

“I think [Fox News is] doing a great deal of damage still. We won’t know how bad for years to come when we see the ultimate results.”

“With the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine, and I don’t do propaganda for anyone.”

“As a former military officer, you took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And I saw, in my view, Fox, particularly the primetime hosts, attacking our constitutional order, the rule of law, the Justice Department, the FBI, Robert Mueller, and, oh, by the way, the intelligence agencies. And they’re doing it for ratings and profit. And they’re doing it knowingly, in my view, doing a grave, grave disservice to our country.”

“I suspect Sean Hannity really believes it. The others are smarter. They know what they’re doing. It’s — it’s bewildering to me. I mean I want to just cry out and say, how can you do this? How can you lie to our country?”

“I think we’re in a constitutional crisis right now. And we’ll end up either, barring unforeseen circumstances, either with impeachment or before the Supreme Court or both.”

“You have a president who believes he is above the law, who does not understand our system of government, does not respect our system of government, and willingly subverts our system of government.”

“I think a lot of Trump supporters are so embarrassed by how it’s all turned out that they just cling to him. They won’t let any facts penetrate their reality. [They insist that Trump] is some sort of messiah.”

“I am convinced that Vladimir Putin has a grip on President Trump. And, Anderson, when I first learned of the Steele dossier, it just rang true to me because that’s how the Russians do things. And before he became a candidate for president, Donald Trump was the perfect target for Russian intelligence. Here’s someone who has no self-control, a sense of sexual entitlement and intermittent financial crises. I mean that’s made to order for seduction by Russian intelligence.”

“When you look at Trump’s behavioral patterns, his unwillingness ever to criticize Vladimir Putin, his slow rolling sanctions, his unwillingness to create problems with Russia, even though, as he attacks NATO, disrupts relations with the E.U., how can you not draw the conclusions that Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is frightened of Vladimir Putin”

“The Mueller investigation is the most important of my lifetime. And I’m 66 years old. I lived through Watergate.”

Everyone will have their favorite quote from those displayed above. Maybe Peters’ characterization of Fox News as a “destructive propaganda machine.” Or perhaps that he thinks Sean Hannity is stupid enough to believe the crap he spews, and the rest are all liars. There is so much to choose from. Fox News was contacted for a comment on this righteous rant. They declined, saying that they stood by the brief statement they made when he left the network two months ago. They never refuted a single thing Peters said. You can watch the entire CNN segment here:

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

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How a Crackpot Conspiracy Theory Went From a Flake to Fox News to Trump’s Twitter

Posted by on June 7, 2018 at 9:55 am. NO Comments :

The most conspicuous indicator of Donald Trump’s guilt is his own frightened and suspicious behavior. That is generally played out on his Twitter account with panicky outbursts that are never supported by facts and often make no sense at all. He is inadvertently producing a documentation of the decline and fall of an illegitimate American demagogue with utter disregard for the peril he faces.

Donald Trump

Trump’s desperation was on full display Wednesday in a flurry of sweaty tweets that unwound a horror story starring himself as a victim of a “Deep State” cabal determined to roll his doughy body to garlic knots. As you peruse the following eruption of crazy remember that there isn’t a speck of it that’s true, or even sane. So curl up with a pillow to clutch and come along for a ride down Daffy Drive:

Holy Shitake Mushroom. Trump’s Twitter tantrums are well known, but this goes way beyond his ordinary, every day, lunacy. The cerebral spasm above took place over the span of an hour on Tuesday. Isn’t that a work day in Washington?

The most interesting part of this story is how Trump came to the telling of it. ThinkProgress retraced its origins and the path it took to Trump World. It seems the fearsome tale began with an innocent enough bit of bullpucky in an anonymous tweet. The author was stirred by text messages between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that he badly misconstrued as some sort of subversive plot. Never mind that the texts made no mention of Trump or his campaign, or that the Senate released them months ago without controversy.

From there the trail led to the notorious conspiracy crank, Gateway Pundit, who posted a typically lie-riddled account of the non-affair. At around the same time Reddit’s fruitcake forum, r/conspiracy, was spewing nonsensical comments alleging the same misconduct by the FBI gone rogue. And finally, the viral strain hit peak media velocity when Lou Dobbs of Fox News latched onto it. This is undoubtedly where Trump got it from.

The fact that such obviously insane hypotheses can get loose in the mediasphere is a sad reflection on the state of American political discourse. But it’s no surprise that when it does, it’s Fox News that plays the most prominent role in its dissemination. And of course, once it’s broadcast on Trump’s favorite TV network, it can’t be long before it shows up in his Twitter feed.

This is how low the bar is in the Era of Trump. The White House is now challenging Glenn Beck and Infowars for supremacy of psychotic derangement. It’s no longer bad enough that we have climate science deniers insisting that Jesus rode dinosaurs off the edge of the flat Earth. We now have a president who is parroting the fevered dementia of anonymous Twitter goofballs as if it were authenticated journalism. #SAD.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


Giuliani Accidentally Confirms that Trump is a Weakling Who Caved In to Kim Jong Un

Posted by on June 6, 2018 at 11:57 am. 1 Comments :

For several weeks there has been a tug of war (literally) between North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Moscow’s Donald Trump. The President has demonstrated severe inconsistency on the subject of whether he would meet with Kim. The announcements and reversals have been head-spinning. But they have also been embarrassing and detrimental to the foreign policies of the United States.

Rudy Giuliani

Naturally, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s TV lawyer – and apparently new State Department spokesman – emerged from beneath the rock he calls home to confuse matters even more. You might think that Giuliani’s time would be consumed with efforts to prevent the President from being impeached and/or imprisoned. But Rudy has other priorities to focus on. Like the PR surrounding Trump’s still unrealized sit-down with Kim. Remember, Giuliani considered himself a candidate to be Trump’s Secretary of State, even if Trump didn’t.

So now Giuliani is weighing in on the subject of the Trump/Kim affair with a comment that puts Trump in a distinctly unflattering light. Which is something that Giuliani has shown a remarkable aptitude for. In response to inquiries regarding the on-again, off-again talks, he told reporters that:

“Kim Jong Un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in.”

Really? Never mind that there is absolutely zero evidence that this account is true. And forget that he was nowhere near the negotiations where one might have had access to this information. This is a meaningless remark that is the sort of worshipful praise espoused by the cult followers of Trump. Giuliani’s intended message is that Trump is a strong leader who has Kim in the palm of his tiny hands.

The only problem with that is that Giuliani’s glassy-eyed praise actually has the exact opposite meaning of his intent. What he’s saying is that Kim wanted this meeting very badly and that Trump didn’t have the guts to say no, or to insist on preconditions that advanced U.S. foreign policy goals. In other words, if Giuliani is correct, then Trump caved merely because Kim asked him to. That’s weakness writ large.

The whole question of whether Trump should meet with Kim has been about Trump’s political impotence from the beginning. For decades North Korean leaders have tried to get the United States to recognize their nation and grant them the legitimacy of diplomatic parity. They have tried to coax prior presidents to the table with the same sort of chain rattling that they did for Trump. The difference is that every previous American leader was strong enough to say no. Trump folded.

As a result, North Korea is getting the only thing they wanted all along: recognition and legitimacy, as well as the elimination of sanctions and a reduction in foreign troop presence. These are all things that Trump is willing to negotiate away without any preconditions on the part of North Korea. And much of the media is missing that fact that this has not been a story of Trump getting Kim to come to the table. It’s about how Kim got Trump to the table without so much as a promise to stop calling him a dotard.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

When Trump first said that he would meet with Kim it was as a result of his misunderstanding of an offhand remark by a North Korean diplomat. Republicans went wild with praise for Trump and some nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. When the meeting was called off, the same Republicans insisted that Trump showed courage for backing out. When the meeting was rescheduled, the same Republicans now say the President is a brilliant tactician. What will they say if the meeting is canceled again? It seems that he can do no wrong. In their eyes he is right to meet or not meet or just call in to Fox and Friends with recipes for lasagna or to divulge state secrets.


Trump DID Collude With Russia – Says Former Fox News Chief Campaign Correspondent

Posted by on June 5, 2018 at 12:25 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s a day that ends with the letter “Y” so obviously Donald Trump is posting on Twitter about how the special counsel’s investigation of him is just a “Russian Witch Hunt Hoax” designed to frame him for crimes that he is totally allowed to pardon himself for (except that he isn’t).

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

In today’s tweet Trump takes aim at his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions (again). Trump believes Sessions should have told him about his intention to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. Never mind that that would have required Sessions to know the future because there was no investigation at the time. Nor did Sessions have any idea that he would need to recuse himself, because that didn’t become necessary until after he testified at his confirmation hearing about meetings with Russians (which he falsely denied).

Now a new book is providing additional evidence that Trump and his campaign did collude with Russia. What’s makes this book significant is that it contains new revelations by “Campaign Carl” Cameron, formerly of Fox News. Cameron was interviewed by ThinkProgress and elaborated on some the things that are outlined in detail in this book: How To Go Viral and Reach Millions.

Cameron’s account included Trump’s connections to various Russian operatives, Wikileaks, and the corrupt data enterprise, Cambridge Analytica. However, much of the story involves Trump’s close association with the notorious dirty trickster, Roger Stone. According to ThinkProgress:

“‘Trump confidant Roger Stone’s success was having the connections and creating the opportunities for [Russian intelligence officer] Guccifer2.0 and other Russian groups to really start taking advantage of social media and pounding these negative memes that Hillary’s a crook, et cetera,’ Cameron explained to ThinkProgress’ Joe Romm”

It has been well documented that Stone was working with Julian Assange and Wikileaks to disseminate anti-Clinton propaganda and stolen emails. His relationship with the hacker Guccifer only exacerbated his complicity when it became known that Guccifer was a working for the Kremlin. Cameron further revealed that:

“The president, Roger Stone, and other campaign officials have put a lot of effort into lying about their meetings and contact with Russians linked directly to the Kremlin and its cyber attack on the United States. But they put even more effort into coordinating their message with the Russians. It will be up to Mueller to determine just how extensive that coordination was.

“As Cameron explained to ThinkProgress, a key goal of this coordination was to create opportunities for Russian intelligence and Russian trolls. The point was to viralize the anti-Clinton memes and narratives to suppress the vote for her.”

Despite the mantra from right-wing media (especially Fox News) that there hasn’t been any evidence to tie Trump to collusion, the truth is that the evidence is abundant and more than incriminating enough to sink Trump and his whole crime family. And this new contribution from someone who had a place of prominence in the Fox propaganda machine only makes what is already known even more damning and perilous for Trump.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


Trump is Admitting Guilt if He Pardons Himself, Requiring Impeachment for Confessed Crimes

Posted by on June 4, 2018 at 1:31 pm. 2 Comments :

For the past several weeks Donald Trump’s TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has assumed the role of saying idiotic things that put the President in deeper legal peril. Now it appears that Trump was not sufficiently satisfied with Giuliani’s efforts, so he has taken over that role himself.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

In a series of tweets that mainly demonstrate his fear and guilty conscience, Trump has explicitly made the case for his inevitable prosecution and impeachment. Of course, he doesn’t have any idea what he actually said or what the consequences will be, but he’s typically adamant about what he’s painfully ignorant of. In a tweet that blows up his whole claim of innocence, Trump said this:

Trump could not be more wrong. Most legal scholars agree that there is nothing in the Constitution or case law that permits a president to pardon himself. In fact, it flies in the face of the Founders insistence that the United States is a government of laws, not men (John Adams, 1780), and that no one is above the law. The ability to self-pardon would empower a president to evade accountability for any criminal act. It’s the doctrine of dictators and tyrants.

More importantly with regard to Trump, the acceptance of a pardon is, under the law, an admission of guilt. In the Supreme Court’s decision of Burdick v. U S, the Court said unambiguously that “…a pardon […] carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.” Therefore, if Trump were to issue a pardon to himself it would also serve as his confession to the underlying crimes.

No matter what one’s opinion of the validity of the pardon, it would be unarguable that the President was accepting as truthful the charges against him. And by doing so he would be making himself subject to impeachment. The severity of a legal breach that warranted a pardon could not be excused under the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard for removing a president from office. And a responsible Congress that respects the Constitution would have no choice but to impeach. Unfortunately, that may not describe the present make up of the Republican suck-ups currently holding the congressional majority.

In addition to Trump’s tweet assuming presidential authority to evade the law, he also tweeted something that illustrates how poorly he understands the law:

It would be interesting if someone could ask Trump exactly what constitutional clause he is citing. Because there isn’t actually any language in the Constitution that supports his claim. And if there were it would just raise additional questions. For instance, if he believes that the appointment of a special counsel is unconstitutional, then why did he himself ask for the appointment of one to investigate Hillary Clinton? And why did he ask that Robert Mueller’s team expand their jurisdiction to include Democrats?

Even more curious is that Trump would allow his Justice Department to proceed with a process he now asserts is against the law? That, in itself, would be grounds for impeachment as a violation of his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” And his characterization of this being merely a game he is playing is a disgraceful insult to American principles of justice.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump clearly has no respect for the law or the Constitution he so cavalierly references. He doesn’t bother to educate himself about the legal matters he puts into the public debate. He is oblivious to his hypocrisy in how he would enforce the laws that he doesn’t understand. And all of that is wrapped in his brazenly ego-driven self-interest. It’s the perspective of a wannabe dictator who is frustrated by the constraints on absolute power articulated in the Constitution that he plainly despises.